Recommended Books

These books have been helpful in giving encouragement, hope, and understanding.

Positive Options for RSD by: Elena Juris

This is a great resource for anyone diagnosed with CRPS/RSD- a ton of information on treatments, coping, and associations that can provide assistance. Also, it is very encouraging to hear different stories about how people have dealt with their illness.

Kitchen Table Wisdom by: Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

Dr. Remen personalizes the struggle of dealing with a chronic condition and finding different ways to appreciate your life and give hope for everyday.

My Grandfather’s Blessings by: Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

Dr. Remen provides stories she’s learned from her grandfather and patients that gives a deeper understanding of life and the struggles we face.

Waking: A memoir of trauma and transcendence by: Matthew Sanford

This is Matthew Sanford’s personal account of reconnecting with his body and healing after becoming paralyzed in a car accident at age 13.

Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail by: Cheryl Strayed

This book provides a great story and will evoke lots of sympathetic laughs in the struggle to figure out what is really important to you after you lose someone/thing important from your life.

A part from Cheryl Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things struck me on page 29-30:

Nobody can intervene and make that right and nobody will. Nobody can take it back with silence or push it away with words. Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal. … but the healing– the genuine healing, the actual real deal down-on-your-knees-in-the-mud change–is entirely and absolutely up to you.